Scald
The heart is a fascinating thing. Powerful. It is said that the pulsing red organ in our chest provides us with all the feelings we have, from anger to joy to despair. Dragons say that besides pumping blood, it apparently creates emotions. Delicate. No matter how much it gives us strength, one word or action can break someone's heart. Dragons say you must be careful with sensitive ones, as they feel everything so very deeply. Deep. The heart is said to be more philosophical than our brain itself, and the ones who preach "speaking from your heart" have given us the deepest and most honest truths we have. Dragons say that to be earnest, you must first look to your heart. But most of all, paradoxical. No dragon can speak all the conflicts that war within our heart. To understand love, one must first stop trying to reason with it. To embrace one's emotions, one must first hold them all back. To break someone's heart, one must first fall in love with it. *click to open the page* SCALD This character belongs to Stardust and was created for a villain contest. Do not edit or use without her permission. Scald won third place in the contest, and that's not the only reason I'm so proud of him. He's the first character I've poured so much time and heart into, and so I value him deeply. He is also the main character of a fanfiction I'm writing called Love, Trust, and the Spaces Between. I mean it when I say that plagiarism is not appreciated. (Edited) code from a free format by DigitalJackal! Note: Possible mature warning. Nothing like alcohol or drugs, but his history will get a little... dark. Appearance Once upon a time, Scald was beautiful. He had a lean, lanky build, towering over other dragons his age because of how tall he was. He might have looked weak, but his muscles rippling just below the surface of his scales showed otherwise. Scald was blessed with a smooth, suave voice, which he could use to charm a cat into giving up its fur. His scales were always grimy and covered with strange sticky substances; Scald was extremely passionate about his job as a mechanic and wasn't afraid to get dirty. With a distinctive swagger to his walk and a slender, diamond-shaped head, he was easily recognizable in a crowd. His posture was often slouching, and he was almost always fidgeting with his talons or flicking his tail absently. Pale white-golden mainscales plated his body, undercurrents of bronze running through them that showed when they caught the light. At first glance it may have seemed that his underbelly was the same color, but it was actually an even lighter shade of this - white with a hint of pale yellow. Dusty tan overscales ran along his spine and limbs, and tiny scales of the same color freckled his snout. His horns were a slightly darker shade, and his spine spikes were as well. His wing membranes were the same color as his underscales too: white with a hint of pale yellow. Three bold lines were tattooed onto his right front leg, which he wore proudly as a mark of his heritage. He also often kept his claws neatly sharpened to a razor-sharp point, although they were often stained with oil and grease. But now? He's hollow. Gone is the swagger to his walk. Gone is the constant motion of his talons. Everything that characterized him as the one and only Scald? Gone. Now, his scales are faded and washed out from neglect. He's bony and skinny, all traces of his former muscle never to be seen again. But worst of all? His eyes, his once energetic, dancing onyx-black eyes, are hollow. Void of emotion. Sapping him of everything he once was. Personality When first looking at Scald, dragons might have assumed him to be bold. Confident in himself. Dramatic, perhaps, prone to mood swings. Some of that may have be true. Scald was certainly a character. Above all, he loved to act, and enjoyed sweeping into rooms dramatically and bellowing a Shakespearan quote to an unusual extent. If there's any kind of play, expect to see Scald there. Deep down, he considered his own life boring, and wished he could swap lives with someone else; this is what provoked most of his distracted states - often he'd stare at some random passersby on the street and get lost in imagining what their life could be like. He was incredibly extroverted, attracted to loud parties and making new friends. Dragons flocked around him like moths to a flame; something about his demeanor and personality just effortlessly attracted others. Although he may have come off as brash, he was a surprisingly loyal companion, caring about his friends and family more than one could ever dream of. Gifted with a silver tongue, Scald was amazingly convincing and persuasive. In addition, he was very bold and willing to take risks, always up for a challenge or to experience some thrills. Scald never seemed sad, or angry, or overwhelmed; rather, he masked his emotions well under a facade of cool go-with-the-flow. Behind the scenes, though, he experienced many series of mood swings, which he hid because he didn't want to seem insecure. Unfortunately, Scald always leaped before he looked, almost never stopping to think things through. His motto was "act first, think later", and his lifestyle reflected this. He held a definite disdain for rules, especially ones that clashed with his own moral compass. If this was the case, he took great pleasure in breaking them, earning him the reputation of "the troublemaker". It was easy for him to come off as bossy; even he would admit it. Scald often got too caught up in himself and his own issues, which meant he would occasionally trample all over others in an effort to express his own opinions. He was slightly impatient as well - to him, waiting was a complete waste of time. In addition, his earthy, blunt honesty often offended others, and his tendency to 'tell it like it is' meant sensitive dragons would rather have avoided him. The SandWing was very perceptive, noticing even the smallest change or difference in a dragon's mood. However, he would often just call it out or bring it up in conversation without regards to the other dragon's feelings. This skill was balanced out by the fact that he often failed to see the bigger picture, focusing on the details and missing out on what was actually going on. He was very determined, never giving up on anything no matter how many times it failed. Scald had been known to stay up late into the night working on new projects or penning his latest scroll, often neglecting his own well-being to finish whatever his brain has decided to pursue. This tied in with his competitiveness - Scald wouldn't admit it, but he was definitely more insistent than he should have been, and he was sort of a sore loser. Unlike most dragons, Scald valued his personal space so much that he would often reflexively strike dragons who got close enough to touch him - even his own relatives. He called this his "defense mechanism"; it was something he couldn't turn off unless he trusted the dragon incredibly deeply, which, for most of his life, was virtually nobody. Although he worked as a mechanic, Scald had a softer side. Despite literally making a living off of using logic and reason, he loved to philosophize and often spent time wondering about things like the meaning of life. However, he was slightly ashamed about this part of him; he thought that dragons would consider his business less "quality" if they knew this facet existed. And so he tucked it away, only bringing it to the surface when he was alone. After the tragedy, Scald retreated inside his own tough shell. More irritable, more cranky. He got annoyed easily, and while still impatient, he would whine and complain and yell much more than the old Scald would have. He pushed away others, refusing connections because "emotions are weakness. logic is strength." In fact, this was his most notable change: his philosophical side had been buried deeper than it ever had been; it was replaced by a fiercely logical dragon who refused to accept anything without a basis in reason. Scald spiraled further and further into madness as his life progressed, although he refused to admit it. He became less and less rational, harder to reason with. He drifted off constantly, but when he snapped back to reality, his eyes were fiery and his expression harsh. Bits of Scald began slipping away one by one - his charm, his confidence - until there was none left. History Scald's history, oddly enough, does not start with his hatching. It goes back centuries - to a feud that has lasted his whole life. The Scorpion Den was home to two rival groups: the Hydras, marked with a tattoo of three straight lines on their right front leg, and the Halcyons, with a complex tattoo of swirling interlocking lines on their left front leg. The Hydras were more confident and adventurous, but the Halcyons preferred an easier lifestyle - which inevitably led to conflict. The two always had been locked in an endless squabble over money, power over the trade in the Scorpion Den, and even core life qualities, having very different cultures: but when a key member of the Halcyons was assassinated, of course, they blamed the Hydras. The struggle became even more fierce after that, except this time, the tensions were not held back. Meetings between the two often started angry and ended bloody. Try as they might, the peace was impossible to reach, and for centuries, it stayed that way. Scald was born to two normal SandWings - except for the fact that they were key advocates for the Hydras and against the Halcyons. However, a few weeks before his hatching, his parents mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again. Scald and his six siblings were raised to hate the Halcyons with all their heart, and although the young dragonet busied himself with school, deep inside, he just wanted love. To love, and to be loved. Right from the start, Scald was often physically harassed. Not abuse, mind you, but he hated how his siblings would just casually punch and shove him like it was no big deal. Eventually he signed up for a self-defense class, and over time, he began becoming so protective of his own personal space bubble that he would whack anybody who got too close. Despite the circumstances, his childhood passed pretty normally, and after he graduated from school he set up a shop and became a mechanic. He discovered his secret passion for philosophy, and began publishing scrolls under the pen name of 'Spellbound of the NightWings' - the dragon he wished he had hatched as. Again, his years were flying past absolutely normally. He longed for adventure, but never truly got it. That is, until he met Oryx. When the dark brown SandWing wearing a bandage over his left leg first strolled into his shop with a terribly broken music box, Scald refused to fix it. He was a mechanic, not a handyman. However, Oryx was incredibly earnest and strangely sweet - a quality most dragons in the Scorpion Den did not possess - and something about him just piqued Scald's interest. Eventually he grudgingly agreed to work on it, although he put his other customers' orders first. Oryx came back every day to check the progress on his music box, which annoyed Scald out of his mind. The two vaguely irritated each other, but Scald continued working on the box with miniscule amounts every day. And so they kept meeting. Over the course of a few months, Scald began looking forward to Oryx's visits. Their conversations drifted from the progress on Oryx's music box to daily life to... well, philosophy. Scald had stars in his eyes but refused to admit it. And eventually, he fell in love. He plucked up the courage to confess to Oryx one day, and to his utter happiness, Oryx responded that he returned the feelings. The two began dating, and even though they got some odd glances from time to time, they didn't care. Scald loved Oryx with all his heart, and he thought Oryx loved him back. He was wrong. One night, Scald was out walking home from another date with Oryx. He felt like he was floating; just being with his boyfriend always left him in a state of euphoria. Finally he was willing to let down his guard, and he twined his tail with Oryx as happiness filled him right up to the brim. That is, until his love suddenly, out of the blue, sprang on him and pinned him to the ground. Scald flew into a state of panic, but managed to wrestle Oryx and began to run away, trying to reason with him. He must have been drunk, or had some weird food, or... something. His attacker caught up, though, and a bloody scuffle ensued. Scald had no intention to harm anybody that night, but his fear and inability to form a coherent thought made him do the unthinkable. He unsheathed his claws and slashed Oryx's throat. The feeling of warm blood running over his scales was one Scald would never forget. His talons, his arms, his snout, everything was covered in blood. The evening had started out shining like a star, but now it was blinking out like a candle flame being snuffed out. A sneaking suspicion slid through his head, and he waded through the pools of red robotically to reach Oryx's body. He pulled back his bandage on his forearm - already growing cold - and found a tattoo of interlocking swirls and curves. The mark of the Halcyon. Now it all made sense. His awkwardness around his parents? They knew that their son was dating a Hydra. His constant disappearances? Halcyon meetings. His flightiness during the date they had just had, saying he had had an appointment afterwards? His appointment to assassinate Scald himself. Scald stood over Oryx's body for a period of time. How long, he couldn't pinpoint. He was lost, so utterly lost, in a whirlwind of memories - Oryx talking animatedly, Oryx laughing at his own joke, Oryx leaning against his shoulder as the sun painted the sky gold. Oryx betraying him. Eventually he fled, leaving the broken body of his former love in the streets. Alone. After the tragedy, the Hydras and the Halcyons' tensions increased even further. Neither group knew who exactly had killed Oryx, but they began acting extremely hostile to each other: most conversations consisting of death threats or sharp insults. Meanwhile, Scald was shattered. He believed that Oryx had used him all along - to get close to him, then to kill him. The heartbroken SandWing came to a conclusion: love didn't exist. Soulmates were never meant to be. And so he decided to educate the public about this very important fact - he would save them from a life of heartache by making them suffer first. Just a little bit. Scald became a charmer, a handsome, seemingly friendly SandWing who wandered the streets, apparently looking for a lover. Whether they were male, female, or didn't fall into either category, he got close to them. Made them let down their guard and begin to truly trust him. Then he dumped them, shattering their heart just like Oryx had shattered his. Of course, on the outside, Scald was calm. Go-with-the-flow. Nothing seemed to faze him, but he always seemed joyful and humorous, a constant flirt. But on the inside, that was not the case - he put up a facade, a disguise of emotion, when in reality, nothing reached his heart. He was just going through the motions, not truly feeling things for how they were. Like everything, though, this illusion didn't last forever. Scald had thought that this would satisfy him. He was helping the public, after all, teaching them a critical life lesson that love didn't exist. But the gaping hole inside his was growing hollower by the hour, and dark ideas began plaguing his waking thoughts. At night, his dreams were twisted and horrifying, and he often woke up in a cold sweat. He couldn't take it anymore; his body was going to explode and his mind rupture from the emotion welling up inside him. One night, he kidnapped a child. Some strange notion had possessed him when he saw the two male dragons laughing happily behind a bright window, and the small, yawning dragonet they cradled so lovingly in their wings. Scald had stared into the house hungrily, and after the family went to sleep, he snuck in through the window and stole the dragonet away. Through a haze of everything and nothing, he slit the dragonet's throat just like he had slit Oryx's all those months ago. Watched the blood gush out just like it had before. Again, he was a monster. But this time, it was his fault. The next morning, by chance or by design, Scald passed by the house he had taken the dragonet from last night. And what he saw chilled him to the bones. The heterosexual couple looked stricken. Sitting on their doorstep, offering flyers printed with a laughing portrait of their child to every dragon who passed by. And every time, they were met with the same answers: a shrug of the shoulders, a shake of the head. The desolate look in their eyes, the way they huddled together like two lost wanderers, cut Scald to his core. His mind snapped, like it should have a long time ago. No emotion left in him, he fled from the Scorpion Den into the surrounding deserts, where he wandered aimlessly. Endlessly. Months later, he died from heatstroke and dehydration. Nobody knew. Nobody cared. Relationships Parents neutral Scald never knew his mother nor his father; instead, he grew up dreaming of them taking care of him. As a dragonet, all he ever wanted was to have a normal family, with normal siblings and normal parents. Alas, this was never the case. This didn't stop him from longing to see them though, and whenever he had free time, he often found his mind drifting to how his life could have been different if he had known his mother and father. Sometimes he felt resentment toward them for how they had seemingly abandoned their children before they had even been born, and he would occasionally rant to his brothers and sisters about how uncaring they must have been. Most of the time, though, he just missed them. Thirsted for some dragon to wrap their wings around him like all the other dragonets did. Don't you ever wish they had stayed? Maybe things would have been different. Siblings neutral --> positive Like all sibling relationships, Scald was constantly tussling with his family. Seven dragonets being raised in the same house was definitely a recipe for disaster, especially since they didn't have parental figures who constantly watched over them. They got into fights almost every day, which had to be broken up by either Quokka or Sage, the peacemakers of the bunch. None of their personalities meshed particularly well, which meant their relationships weren't exactly harmonious. However, over time, all of them matured at their own paces, and learned to appreciate the world around them - including the very dragons they had grown up with. They were always there to support each other, no matter the circumstances. The whole group watched Scald fall in love, and cheered him on from the sidelines. Eventually, they learned to support each other. Just like siblings should. They're my family. How could I ever hate them? Oryx positive --> negative Right from the start, Oryx had a certain allure that drew Scald in inexplicably. However, he never expected to fall in love with the earnest SandWing - until he was. Scald realized how much he enjoyed everything about Oryx, and when he eventually confessed to him, Oryx responded that he returned the feelings. The months during which Scald was dating Oryx was the best time period of his life. But when the tables turned, and Oryx tried to assassinate Scald, the latter lost all his trust in dragons - including his former love himself. Scald chose to believe that Oryx had heartlessly used him: to get close to him, to get him to let down his guard... then to wipe him from the world. From then on, the first world that bubbled to the top of Scald's mind when he thought of Oryx was hate. He vowed never to feel romantic affection for a dragon ever again: Oryx had taught him a lesson. I loved him: so very deeply. But he didn't return the feeling, apparently. The Hydras positive Scald had always been proud of his culture, and nothing could ever change that. Although he never had parents, one of the Hydras raised him in a group home along with all his siblings, something he was eternally grateful for. Right from the start, the belief that Hydras were superior was drummed into his head, and he took it to heart. The culture of the Hydras shaped most of his personality - their value of adventure and belief that freedom lies in being bold. To impress his caretakers he often took unnecessary risks, but he was living up to the Hydra standard, and that was really all he cared about. I was born into the Hydras, and I'm not leaving them. They're my only tie to my parents. The Halcyons neutral --> negative Although he had been taught to hate Halcyons, Scald had never really understood why. Why should he dislike a group that he had never met before? As a dragonet he didn't care whether his friends were Hydra or Halcyon; he played and talked and flirted with anyone shamelessly. Even though the mark of his own was emblazoned on his wrist, he displayed it proudly, and nobody seemed to mind. After the encounter with Oryx, though, Scald's neutrality toward the Halcyons quickly turned negative. He believed that Oryx had gone dark because of his clan, and from then on, he hissed and spat at any dragon who bore the crest of the Halcyon. Maybe his disgust was unjustified, but it was there. And it wasn't going away. Disgusting, senseless creatures. I hate them, I hate them all. Trivia *Makes decisions incredibly quickly, due to the fact that he usually doesn't think them through *Ambidextrous; can use both hands equally well *A serious case of dimples *Often stays up very late, but seems to be immune to eye bags *Everything he draws looks like he dipped an angry cow in paint and had it trample all over a paper *Really enjoys warm colors, not so much cool ones *Enjoys salty, strong-flavored foods *Had a low, smoky voice, and an uproarious laugh that was infections *Almost never seems to yawn *Paces with long strides when he's nervous or on edge *Taught himself to calculate formulas in his head, although the rest of his mental prowess is rather average *A smooth liar *Actually really hates the water and anything related to swimming, from a bad experience of watching his brother almost drown as a dragonet *Secretly plays with toys when he's alone, although he would never admit it Gallery ScaldXOryx.jpeg|Scald x Oryx aesthetic by Sby Scald by deathseer.png|Bust by Deathseer File:574A8670-56DA-4C70-B663-4F1EFBE57FCF.jpeg|Aesthetic by Wolves Scald.png|Headshot by Dreaming 7D85985D-F3B2-4E8C-AFC1-CF933BA2B6F2.jpeg|Gift by Jellybean <3 Category:Characters Category:SandWings Category:Males Category:LGBT+ Category:Deceased Characters Category:Mentally Unwell Category:Content (Stardust the IceWing-RainWing)